Remember, this is a different list then the US News "basic" 4 tiers of law school rankings, this is the JD Tax Specialty Rankings which is limited to 25 schools. The LLM numbers are extrapolated from the JD numbers.

(I'm not defending the list, I'm just posting it.)

LLM TAX PROGRAMS:
. 1. NYU
Tied for #2:
. 2. Florida
. 2. Georgetown
. 4. Northwestern
Tied for #5:
. 5. Boston University
. 5. Miami
. 7. San Diego
. 8. Loyola-L.A.
. 9. Chapman
Tied for #10:
. 10. Denver
. 10. SMU
. 10. U. Washington

J.D. TAX PROGRAMS
. 1. NYU
Tied for #2:
. 2. Florida
. 2. Georgetown
. 4. Northwestern
. 5. Harvard
Tied for #6:
. 6. Boston University
. 6. Miami
. 6. UCLA
. 9. Michigan
. 10. Stanford
Tied for #11:
. 11. San Diego
. 11. Virginia
Tied for #13:
. 13. Columbia
. 13. Texas
. 15. Chicago
. 16. Loyola-L.A.
Tied for #17:
. 17. Chapman
. 17. Penn
Tied for #19:
. 19. Denver
. 19. SMU
. 19. U. Washington
. 19. Yale
Tied for #23:
. 23. Boston College
. 23. George Washington

Thanks for the posting...

I tend to think that these ranks are one of the resources available for comparing tax LLM programs, but it is not a pure ranking of tax LLM programs.

The USNWR tax specialty rankings only ranks law school tax programs, not Tax *LLM* programs. Half of the schools ranked for tax programs do not even offer a tax LLM; they simply have good tax programs for the JD program.

By removing those schools that do not offer LLMs (or extrapolating as SteveB put it) you can condense the list to the schools with the best tax programs that also offer tax LLMs. Though the difference may be slight (or irrelevant to some), that is different than ranking the best tax LLM programs.


Also, the methodology for the tax rankings is different from the overall law school rankings. To understand the methodology behind the USNWR tax specialty rankings, see http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/best-graduate-schools/2008/03/26/law-methodology.html?s_cid=related-links:TOP

"Specialty Rankings

These specialty rankings are based solely on votes by legal educators who nominated up to 15 schools in each field. Legal educators chosen were a selection of those listed in the Association of American Law Schools Directory of Law Teachers 2005-2006 as currently teaching. In the case of clinical and legal writing, the nominations were made by directors or members of the clinical and legal writing programs. Those programs that received the most nominations appear."